Congress & Federal Issues

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If Congress fails to reauthorize a popular health insurance program, it will cost the state big money. But unlike in some other states, New Mexico’s children won’t lose health insurance. The Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, lapsed on Sept. 30. Since then, Congress has failed to agree on renewing the federally-funded program.

U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat, entering his sixth term in office, was unanimously elected the Assistant Democratic Leader for the next Congress. In a statement, Luján said he was “honored” to be selected for that position, which makes him the number four Democrat in the House. “As Assistant Democratic Leader, I will welcome ideas from all corners of our Caucus to build our agenda, protect our majority, hold the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans accountable, and make a positive difference in people’s lives,” the congressman said. “Just like the midterm elections, the road ahead won’t be easy. But I’m confident that if we are all willing to come to the table, listen, ask the hard questions, and put in the work, we will successfully meet this moment.”

Luján led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a group tasked with electing Democrats to the U.S. House, throughout the past two election cycles.

Inflammatory words over immigration led to a heated back-and-forth this week between a New Mexico Congresswoman and an Arizona Congressman. It began after Democratic New Mexico U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham brought Dalia Medina, a woman who immigrated to the U.S. with her parents from Mexico as a child, as her guest to the State of the Union last week. Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar from Arizona called for U.S. Capitol police to check immigration statuses of Lujan Grisham’s and others’, guests and possibly arrest them. Even those in his own party weren’t on board with the call for arrests. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, distanced himself from the proposal in the hours before the State of the Union.

Democrats in the New Mexico congressional delegation slammed the release of a memo by House Intelligence Committee Republicans, saying the document was partisan and inaccurate. The FBI urged Congress to not release the memo before President Donald Trump allowed its release. The memo itself likely will not be a smoking gun to end the investigation into the Trump presidential campaign, as some supporters had hoped. Indeed, it confirmed that the FBI began investigating Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos well before the U.S. government saw the Steele Dossier. Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee crafted their own memo, which they wish to release.

New Mexico’s two U.S. Senators oppose any funding bill that does not include a fix for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. The program, known as DACA, has been debated since September when President Donald Trump announced he would he end the Obama-era program. Trump also stopped the federal government from processing new applications. The short-term spending bill proposed by House Republicans lacks immigration provisions. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, a Democrat, announced on social media he opposed the short-term 30-day spending bill.

Hundreds of Iraqi refugees currently detained by the U.S. federal government could be released as early as next month. A federal judge ruled Tuesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has until Feb. 2 to show “clear and convincing evidence” that Iraqi refugees being detained are a public safety or flight risk. U.S. Federal District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith wrote that while immigration proceedings are pending, “the aliens who were arrested have now languished in detention facilities — many for over six months — deprived of the intimacy of their families, the fellowship of their communities, and the economic opportunity to provide for themselves and their loved ones.”

The mass detentions go back to a travel ban implemented by President Donald Trump’s administration last year. While Iraq was one of the countries included in the ban, the U.S. government agreed to exclude Iraq from the ban in exchange for the Middle Eastern country allowing political and religious refugees back in the country when they are deported.

Gov. Susana Martinez joined 20 Republican governors in support of federal tax cuts. The letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, didn’t advocate for either plan passed by the House or Senate, but instead called for general principles in a tax overhaul. The House and Senate each passed different plans, necessitating a conference committee for the two to reconcile language. The narrow Republican majority complicates the measure, as does the House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of hardline conservative Republicans in the House, including New Mexico’s Rep. Steve Pearce. They touted tax cuts made since 2011, and the economic growth they say the cuts caused.

The tax bill Congress is considering could blow up New Mexico’s budget—as early as next year. New Mexico Senate Finance Committee chair John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, and House Appropriations and Finance Committee chair Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, sounded the alarm with a letter to members of the congressional delegation and Gov. Susana Martinez. The two wrote the state could lose nearly $600 million in federal funding in the coming year, including over $430 million in federal mineral leasing payments. This is money the federal government pays to states for oil and gas drilling and coal mining on federal lands within their borders. “Loss of FML revenues, which primarily fund public education in New Mexico, would have a devastating impact on the state’s budget and would wipe out the reserves our state has struggled to rebuild,” the two legislators wrote.

President Donald Trump made a number of remarks during an event honoring Navajo Code Talkers that have drawn condemnation. Trump met with three Navajo Code Talkers in the Oval Office, in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson. Jackson was the president responsible for the Trail of Tears, a brutal removal of Native Americans from lands in the South. In all, thousands of children, women and men died and tens-of-thousands were displaced to make way for more slave plantations. There, he insulted a U.S. Senator calling her “Pocahontas.”

At the event, three Navajo Code Talkers attended the White House event and asked the federal government to create a museum dedicated to the role Code Talkers undertook during World War II.

Both of New Mexico’s U.S. Senators back the idea of an investigation into sexual harassment by Sen. Al Franken. Thursday morning, Los Angeles radio host Leeann Tweeden said Franken groped her and wrote a kissing scene in a sketch just so he could kiss her while on a USO tour. She described it as sexual assault. The tour took place before Franken, a Democrat, ran for office. He has cited the tour as a reason why he decided to run for Senate. In the post-Harvey Weinstein and Roy Moore accusation landscape, the reactions were swift, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calling for an ethics investigation.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has targeted immigrants to the United States. He attempted to ban on refugees from certain countries, continues to lobby Congress to fund a border wall and most recently, flip flopped on whether or not to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Known by its acronym, DACA, the program protects those who were brought to the United States without document while they were children from deportation. Trump’s administration announced earlier in September that he would end the Obama-era program, and now the people who had signed up under DACA are facing uncertain futures. And now advocates nationwide are working to blunt the impacts of the delayed end to the program.

OPINION & ANALYSIS

Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, has proposed legislation (SB 459) that would place a four year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (i.e. fracking) of oil and gas wells in New Mexico. Before passing such legislation our elected leaders and the public must understand if fracking really is a problem that requires such action. Fracking involves injecting […]

The Fifty Fourth Legislature is being ushered in by forward-minded policy proposals supporting a “go big” approach to New Mexico economic development alongside environmental progress. It’s a policy session for the Legislature, and the best way to create good policy is to work together in ways that benefit voters and the state’s economy and environment. […]

New Mexico has a renewable portfolio standard which requires our utility providers to produce 20 percent of the electricity we consume – the electricity that powers our homes and businesses – by 2020. At the time it was passed it was an incredible step to take to help diversify our energy production and produce more […]

During this legislative session, we can choose to continue tax cuts that benefit the wealthy and well-connected, or we can choose a new path and prioritize our children and families. It’s time to reverse course on excessive tax breaks and invest in healthy and thriving communities instead: investments in our schools to set our children […]

One of my jobs as your Secretary of State is to act as the state’s chief elections officer. As such, I’m committed to modernizing our elections for the 21st Century and same-day voter registration is integral to that goal. My life in public service has been dedicated to expanding access to the ballot box and […]

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The state House of Representatives approved a $7 billion budget on Thursday, sending to the Senate a plan for the next fiscal year that would provide nearly half a billion dollars in additional funds for public schools but which Republicans say amounts to an outsize increase in government spending.